Posts Tagged ‘Sell More’

Decoding The Path to Success is about our personal quest to find the success we seek. There is a way. It is comprised of soft skills that equate to leadership. If I stand and deliver on those components it could be pretty sleepy. But…the message is delivered in the context of our Heroes & Role Models. They show us the Path.

The Path to Success always goes through more revenue, profitability, having a meaningful purpose for your business, managing change, motivating employees, taking action, developing and keeping employee attitudes positive and productive, and more.

As young boys in west Texas we had athletes for Heroes. Football and baseball players were mine. I knew all about them. Read about their games. I knew their statistics.

I tried to be like them on the playing fields. If they did things a certain way, then I tried the same thing. I watched them on TV…..all 3 channels!!! If I could just be like them, I thought, then I would be successful. It was simple.

And then,….Time happened. I wasn’t the athlete my heroes had been. I moved on.

Like all of us I piled up life’s experiences, acquaintances, and events. People moved in and out of my life. And…They left their impressions.

In one way or another I refer to those lessons today. Each of us has those experiences. Use them. Rely on them. Learn from your earliest Role Models. They help us on the Path to Success.

There once was a farmer who grew award-winning corn. Each year he entered his corn in the state fair where it won a blue ribbon.

One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors.

“How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked.

“Why sir,” said the farmer, “didn’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn.”

He is very much aware of the connectedness of life. His corn cannot improve unless his neighbor’s corn also improves.

So it is with our lives. Those who choose to live in peace must help their neighbors to live in peace. Those who choose to live well must help others to live well, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others to find happiness, for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all.

The lesson for each of us is this: if we are to grow good corn, we must help our neighbors grow good corn.

It is possible to give away and become richer! It is also possible to hold on too tightly and lose everything. Yes, the liberal man shall be rich! By watering others, he waters himself.
Proverbs 11:24-25

If a person gets caught fishing without a license, in most cases, it results in a fine of perhaps a few hundred dollars.

For those aboard Citation, however, the infraction represents a setback of nearly $1 million.

The vessel’s anglers had been participating in the 52nd annual Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament, June 11-19 off North Carolina. Smith landed what was by far the biggest fish: an 883-pound marlin, a tournament record.

The team on Saturday was declared winner of the prestigious competition, and there was plenty of celebration.

However, there also was a post-event lie-detector test, after which it was revealed that one of the hired crew did not possess a valid fishing license, available in North Carolina for only $15, or $30 for non-residents.

That was a violation of tournament rules and after lengthy deliberation, according to Evans Kistler of the Carteret County News-Times, tournament officials late Tuesday disqualified the catch and and denied the Citation team the winning purse.

End of celebration.

“No record. No money. No fish. No nothing. Yep, it’s a nice ending to the story isn’t it?” Smith told the Jacksonville Daily News. “He failed to get a fishing license, but we didn’t know it. He told us he had it. He didn’t. So you take a man at his word, you know?”

That man is Jones. According to the state’s fisheries division, he went out and bought a license after the catch of the monster marlin, bringing more shame to his team. He’ll be fined $35 and ordered to pay court costs totaling $125.

The new winners are those who fished aboard the vessel Carnivore and caught the second-largest marlin, weighing 528.3 pounds. They net a grand total of $999,453.

Johnson, one of Citation’s owners, figured the tournament board would not rule in Citation’s favor.

“I think the Big Rock committee is doing what they have to do,” he said. “I understand that. I’m a retired colonel. I know about rules.”

See how many lessons you can find in this to use with your next message. One where you want to influence, persuade, communicate with a person or audience. Attaching a story to your message is just about infallible in connecting to another’s emotions.

A farmer had some puppies he needed to sell. He painted a sign advertising the 4 pups and set about nailing it to a post on the edge of his yard. As he was driving the last nail into the post, he felt a tug on his overalls. He looked down into the eyes of a little boy.

“Mister,” he said, “I want to buy one of your puppies.”
“Well,” said the farmer, as he rubbed the sweat off the back of his neck, “These puppies come from fine parents and cost a good deal of money.”

The boy dropped his head for moment. Then reaching deep into his pocket, he pulled out a handful of change and held it up to the farmer. “I’ve got thirty-nine cents. Is that enough to take a look?”

“Sure,” said the farmer. And with that he let out a whistle. “Here, Dolly!” he called. Out from the doghouse and down the ramp ran Dolly followed by four little balls of fur. The little boy pressed his face against the chain link fence. His eyes danced with delight. As the dogs made their way to the fence, the little boy noticed something else stirring inside the doghouse.

Slowly another little ball appeared, this one noticeably smaller. Down the ramp it slid. Then in a somewhat awkward manner, the little pup began hobbling toward the others, doing its best to catch up… “I want that one,” the little boy said, pointing to the runt. The farmer knelt down at the boy’s side and said, “Son, you don’t want that puppy. He will never be able to run and play with you like these other dogs would.”

With that, the little boy stepped back from the fence, reached down, and began rolling up one leg of his trousers. In doing so, he revealed a steel brace running down both sides of his leg attaching itself to a specially made shoe.

Looking back up at the farmer, he said, “You see sir, I don’t run too well myself, and he will need someone who understands.”

With tears in his eyes, the farmer reached down and picked up the little pup. Holding it carefully, he handed it to the little boy.

We learn that Emotion creates Action. When we find that emotion in a person and we know how to move it, then we get the response we want. Sports, business, family, vacation, in all areas of life. So, how do we move it? What is effective? Why is it effective?

In this forum we have been looking at attaching a story to our message in order to elicit the emotion we seek. In a recent Vistage session a participant offered that her experience with stories is that they help find the Trust button in the audience, they create a bond. A story will inspire the audience because of the emotion it has reached.

Armed with that feedback and my absolute knowing that a story is the way to enhance our Leadership and sales abilities, a client and I planned an important sales call for her. It had been a particularly tough prospect for her consulting practice. They were nearing a deal, the prospect was interested, she just wasn’t closing. She seemed to have a good process, questioning was leading them in the right direction, but something was missing. In past meetings she had learned that the prospect felt he had a solid product, their reputation was excellent. The business had its ups and downs like everyone. But it was just stagnant. Just not moving. She saw that his problem was the management team and their inability to work together.

We developed a strategy for the next sales call. Signs indicated it could be the last. All of the management team would be present for the meeting. A first for her. She began by asking each team member very probing questions. Many of them fumbled. She offered concepts of solutions “when they worked together.” Then she told a story crafted to demonstrate the challenge all of them were facing. It described a strong company and begged the question of why it wasn’t moving forward. That story found the Emotion in the CEO and every member of the management team. It moved them to Action. She now has them as a new client.

Plan your next meeting. Put a story in there. Attach it to a message. Aim it at a specific Emotion. Watch the positive results.